Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 21, 2020

VENTNOR Rabbi Avrohom Rapoport and his daughters, Ella, 12, and Chaya, 8, set up plastic chairs under a tent Friday afternoon in the courtyard at Chabad at the Shore Synagogue ahead of Rosh Hashana. The courtyard, divided into two sections, will be used for holiday services.

The synagogue would typically have 200 people at the service, but due to COVID-19, its observance of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which began at sundown Friday, was scaled down.

The concern for peoples health is of utmost importance, Rapoport said. However, the high holidays are such an important time. We were concerned. How can we hold services and yet keep people safe? Were outdoors. Everyone wears masks, and its just a safer environment.

The outside courtyard can accommodate 55 people, all socially distanced. The synagogue can hold 200 people inside 50 people at 25% capacity but Rapoport has held all services outside for everyones safety.

Two services will be held, the traditional four-hour service and a one-hour abbreviated service, both Saturday, he said. To adhere to capacity restrictions, members had to make a reservation to come to the services.

With three cultural sites dedicated to bringing awareness to and preserving Jewish heritage,

And for those not comfortable coming to an outdoor gathering, the synagogue will hold a 20-minute service on the beach Sunday evening.

Its symbolic where we cast our sins into the sea, and its a tradition that children throw the bread in the water, he said.

Once the pandemic hit, the synagogue shut down for eight weeks in the spring and then held services outside when it reopened. Rapoport has also held services virtually through Zoom and Facebook Live.

The numbers have definitely been lower, but we ramped up our online presence, he said. In some ways, we have more people engaged with the synagogue (during) COVID, but just not in person.

Before COVID-19, 150 to 200 people would come to regular services in the summer, according to the rabbi. This past summer, only 40 people came for services regularly.

NEWARK A Bergen County town has reached an agreement in a federal lawsuit that accused it

One of those loyal members is part-time Ventnor resident Phyllis Beresin. To continue practicing her faith, she attended outdoor services at the synagogue.

It wasnt hard at all, she said of adjusting to outside services. Its a beautiful space, and I feel like Im in Israel when Im here. To me, its wonderful.

She commended Rapoport for doing as much as he can with what he was dealt.

He encourages us to come for services by having the space for us. I think hes been providing the right atmosphere for all of us, she said. Were very fortunate to have this available here.

No virtual services will be held for Rosh Hashana because Scripture says no electricity shall be used during the 48-hour holiday, Rapoport said.

Jewish Family Service of Atlantic and Cape May counties released its Village By The Shore pr

The holiday allows Jews to recognize and celebrate the new year and let in new hope and blessings, he said.

On the Hebrew calendar, its going to be the year 5781; 5780 was a tough one for many, he said. Rosh Hashana is a time of introspection, and I think were living in a time where everyone had a lot of time to stop and introspect.

And with the introspection came new ways to live, and worship.

When COVID started, the thought of reopening synagogue, and servicing our community, seemed impossible. But its amazing how people learn to adapt, to pivot, to figure out creative ways to do things, Rapoport said. In the synagogue weve also adapted and we found safe ways to keep people connected to their religion, their heritage, while also being careful to protect their health.

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Ventnor synagogue adapting to COVID-19 changes ahead of Rosh Hashana - Press of Atlantic City

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Posted By admin on September 21, 2020

Ebrahim Dahood Nonoo, the leader of Bahrains tiny Jewish community, was among the Gulf countrys approximately 50 Jews who thought peace with Israel would never arrive in our lifetimes.

It just didnt seem possible, Nonoo told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Manama, the capital city where he lives with his wife.

Tuesdays signing of the agreementscalled the Abraham Accords is expected to open up routes for collaboration, trade and travel between Bahrain and Israel, which had all been restricted. It will have a significant impact on Bahrains Jews, many of whom have relatives in Israel they have not been able to visit.

Bahrains Jews werent the only ones shocked when President Donald Trump announced that he had brokered peace agreements between Israel and two Arab states,the United Arab EmiratesandBahrain, within a month of each other.

Israel only has relations with two other Arab nations in the region, and most of its neighbors have long isolated the Jewish state and at times even gone to war with it.

We can talk to our relatives and we can feel more comfortable now about going and coming. It actually changes quite a lot, said Nonoo, a businessman who in 2001 became the first Jewish person appointed to serve on to the countrys Shura Council, the upper chamber of its National Assembly.

The Jewish community in Bahrain, an island nation of some 1.5 million people, dates back about 140 years to the late 1800s, when a group of Iraqi Jews arrived in search of economic opportunities. Many were poor and lacked education but found jobs, and eventually success, in the clothing industry. Nonoos grandfather came as a 12-year-old together with his uncle and found a job picking silver threads out of discarded dresses and selling them.

They were kind of misfits coming out of Iraq, Nonoo said of the first arrivals. In other words, they werent getting anywhere in Iraq, so they decided to try their luck in Bahrain.

A smaller number of Jews also settled in Bahrain from Iran at around the same time. At its height in the 1920s and 30s, the community had about 800 members, according to Nonoo, though others have said the number was as high as 1,500. Though community members mixed socially with Bahraini Muslims, they mainly married within the community and lived close to each other in Manama. Members continued to speak a Jewish dialect of Iraqi Arabic and still do.

In 1935, a member of the Cartier family, the Jewish clan who founded the eponymous jewelry company, passed through on a business trip and ended up donating money to build a synagogue and bring in a rabbi, according to Nonoo. Over the next 10 years, the community continued to flourish economically and gathered in the synagogue for services.

[That] was a fantastic time for all of them, Nonoo said.

But things took a turn for the worse following the 1947 U.N. Partition vote, which recommended the creation of a Jewish state in then-Palestine alongside an Arab one. The move led to antisemitic riots throughout the Arab world, including in Bahrain.

A group of rioters Nonoo said they were migrants from other Arab countries burned the synagogue to the ground and stole the countrys only Torah scroll. Most of the community left after the attack or in the decade and a half following, settling in Israel.

The few who remained or their descendants make up the 50 or so Jews living in the country. There is an active Jewish cemetery, but the synagogue rebuilt by Nonoos father in the 1980s never officially reopened and most of the community continues to pray at home. Nonoo is renovating the building and hopes to reopen it next year as a house of worship and museum.

And on Monday, Jared Kushner, Trumps Jewish son-in-law who serves as his senior adviser, gifted Bahrains King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa a Torah scroll for the synagogue.

Most of the community members today are financially successful and continue to be represented in the Shura Council, which has designated a seat each for representatives of the countrys Jewish and Christian populations. Nonoos successor was Houda Nonoo, who later went on to serve as Bahraini ambassador to the United States. She was succeeded by Nancy Khedouri, a relative of the powerfulKadoorie family, a Hong Kong-based Jewish family of Iraqi origin who went on to become one of the wealthiest families in Asia (and transliterated the surname differently). Houda Nonoo and Khedouri are Ebrahim Nonoos cousins.

It is indeed a privilege to be part of the Law-making process with my multi-faith Colleagues, where we all enjoy Equality and Freedom of Expression and where we continue to strive to draft out Laws to be implemented, that will be fair, serving in the best interests of our Country and to all Citizens, regardless of Religious differences, Khedouri told JTA in an email.

Still, the local Jewish community is aging, as many young people leave to study abroad and often choose to remain in other countries after their studies including Nonoos children, who both live in the United Kingdom.

Hopefully theyll be back soon, he said.

Nonoo hopes the new agreement with Israel will turn around the trend and that plans to build the Abrahamic Family House, a site that will host a church, mosque and synagogue in the nearby United Arab Emirates, may draw more Jews to settle in the Gulf.

We are very, very happy to see that thats going to be a place that many Jews can stay in the UAE and build up families there, so were hoping that with that we will get Jews coming to Bahrain, he said.

For his part, Nonoo doesnt see himself settling anywhere else.

Our religion is Jewish, but really our culture is very Arabic, and we feel very at home, he said. I honestly could not see myself living anywhere else.

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Meet the Jews of Bahrain. They've been there for 140 years. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on September 21, 2020

Planning for the Days of Awe, like planning for almost everything else in the first year of the novel coronavirus, involves preparing for surprises. This time, we might have to do things differently.

The rabbis of several local congregations spoke with the Jewish News about how they plan to modify services to comply with the uneven progress of the pandemic, or with changed orders from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, or with new medical advice. Conditions and plans for the holidays may change at any moment, rabbis at each congregation stressed that these plans are subject to change.

Liberal denominations of Judaism Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist have the option of conducting their services largely over the internet. Rabbi Shalom Kanter of Congregation Bnai Moshe, a Conservative congregation in West Bloomfield, reports that they plan to have only 15 people physically present in the building when the services take place. The rest of the congregation should attend safely in their own spaces, linked by their computer monitors.

But Orthodox synagogues in the Detroit area do not anticipate using electronic media to facilitate virtual attendance on the actual holy days. Congregations contemplate different strategies for in-person prayer that meets state guidelines which requires congregants to wear masks and stay physically distant from each other. According to Whitmers executive orders, however, places of worship are not subject to penalty for failing to adhere to these rules when used for worship services.

Some Orthodox synagogues have already been holding in-person services this summer, and attendees have told the Jewish News that these guidelines are not always followed. In one congregation, according to a congregant who wishes to remain anonymous, even during regular services this summer, a significant cadre attend without wearing masks and without observing the synagogues announced rules of physical distancing.

In a handful of other Orthodox congregations in Oak Park, worshippers at weekday services stand together, not wearing masks; a photograph of such a weekday service at one congregation was published by a worshipper who approves of ignoring the governors orders. The rabbi of that congregation did not respond to requests for information.

Rabbis at other Orthodox synagogues press forward with new guidelines for this years Days of Awe. Rabbi Yechiel Morris explained that at Young Israel of Southfield, the medical team several physicians among the members researched the best recommendations for worship. The synagogue leadership then surveyed members to identify their preferences among these recommendations. The congregation determined to offer three choices: An early morning service, somewhat abbreviated, will meet with seating inside in the social hall and outside at the adjacent patio. Next, a second group will meet for a much-abbreviated service in the same location. A smaller group can choose a nearly full-length service in the sanctuary, but with physical distancing. All congregants will be asked to wear masks and observe distancing of close to 10 feet. When the shofar is sounded, the bell-end will have a cloth covering.

In the most painful departure from tradition, according to Rabbi Morris, he will ask parents not to bring children below third grade to services, but only to hear the shofar.

Rabbi Morris emphasized this as the most important advice: We are in a pandemic. Talk to your doctor. If you should not come to shul, do not come.

Rabbi Shaya Katz indicated that while the Young Israel of Oak Park has not yet set its plans as of late August, it contemplates a similar set of three services, with two out-of-doors and one inside.

Rabbi Sasson Natan at Keter Torah Synagogue, the Sephardic synagogue in West Bloomfield, plans to hold services in the sanctuary, but with reduced attendance. Every third chair will be available. All other chairs will be removed, he said.

On Sunday, the shofar will be sounded outside in the parking lot, weather and security concerns permitting. If the shofar has to be indoors, Rabbi Sasson anticipates having two soundings in separate areas.

Rabbi Sasson added that the synagogue will provide hand sanitizer; of course, everyone will have a mask, and no hugging, no kissing very hard for us, a Mediterranean people.

Young Israel of Southfield will not use a tent, following the advice of its medical team. But other congregations plan to have services under tents for shade and protection from rain. Kehillat Etz Chayim in Huntington Woods, for example, according to Rabbi Asher Lopatin, will hold services outdoors under an open tent in the spacious backyard of a congregant. Worshippers will have to register in advance, so Kehillat Etz Chayim can limit the number at each of two consecutive services on Rosh Hashanah morning.

At Ohel Moed of Shomrey Emunah in West Bloomfield, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Jundef has arranged for services to take place under a tent. Congregation Or Chadash in Oak Park similarly plans to set up a large tent in the backyard of congregant, with widely spaced seats and everyone in masks. Rabbi Azaryah Cohen has streamlined the service in accordance with Jewish law.

At the Woodward Avenue Shul in Royal Oak, Rabbi M. M. Polter plans a tent in the synagogue parking lot and adjacent area, holding spaces for anyone who reserves in advance. The synagogue will provide bottled water.

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Orthodox Shuls Adapt High Holiday Services in the Time of COVID Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on September 21, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a child of Brooklyn long before she was Notorious daughter of Jewish immigrants, graduate of P.S. 238 and James Madison High School (class of 1950), cheerleader known as Kiki Bader, member of the East Midwood Jewish Center.

She lived on the first floor of a two-story house on East Ninth Street in the multiethnic Midwood neighborhood and fed her mind at the local public library branch, upstairs from a Chinese restaurant and a beauty parlor.

Shes part of the folklore of the community, said Joseph Dorinson, who lives in the neighborhood and has taught at James Madison. My neighbors brother dated her.

Howard Teich, founding chairman of the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, said Justice Ginsburg resonated so profoundly with Brooklynites the elders who followed her judicial career and the young people who loved the pop icon because she represented the values of her block.

Its a place that lends itself to the values of modesty and people living with each other, and that has lasted her through her lifetime, he said. As an emblem of pride, he added, Shes singular in terms of who she was.

Over the weekend, as news spread of Justice Ginsburgs death on Friday, makeshift memorials of candles, signs, flowers and even an R.B.G. action figure went up outside James Madison High School and her childhood home. Hundreds gathered Saturday night outside the courthouse in Foley Square in Manhattan, holding candles and singing the civil rights anthem Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Freedom, and a vigil was also held outside Kings County Supreme Court. Handwritten signs in different parts of Brooklyn urged neighbors to honor her legacy by voting.

Theyve been coming and going all weekend to pay their respects, said Diana Brenneisen, who has lived in the justices old house since 1969. Theyre outside now.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the state would erect a statue in her honor in Brooklyn. It will be only the fifth statue Mr. Cuomos administration has created since he took office in 2011.

NYs heart breaks with the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mr. Cuomo said on Twitter.

Over the weekend, state monuments were bathed in blue light, her favorite color.

Enterprising New Yorkers altered a subway mosaic at 50th Street to read RUth St. and added her initials to a street sign commemorating the rapper Notorious B.I.G.

At the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the display board posted her encouragement: Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

As national politicians spent the weekend debating whether to fill her seat on the Supreme Court before Election Day, Mayor Bill de Blasio honored her as a native daughter, saying, Im crushed that we lost an incomparable icon. A daughter of Brooklyn. A tenacious spirit who moved this country forward in fairness, equality and morality. She was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She never backed down from a fight. Tonight her hometown and world mourn. Flags around the city flew at half-staff.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referenced the battle over Justice Ginsburgs court replacement, saying, It is heartbreaking that in her final moments she was, as are many others, preoccupied with what would happen after her passing.

For others, the loss was personal. Are you kidding me? Paula Evans, a high school classmate of the justice who is now living in Florida, said when asked what she meant to the borough. Im looking at her face right now. She was a wonderful girl and lady, a real go-getter. Thats what we called them then. Its a loss.

In Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Becky Celestina, 26, said the death had made her feel hopeless yet determined to do something. When she heard the news, she said, The first thing I did was sign up to be a poll worker.

At a Friday night Rosh Hashana service conducted on Zoom at the justices old synagogue, the East Midwood Jewish Center, news of her death reached the group just as the congregants were about to log off. I was choked up, said Rabbi Cantor Sam Levine. People were crying.

The following day in his sermon, the rabbi read from an essay Ms. Ginsburg had written as a student at the synagogues Hebrew school in 1946, at age 13, arguing against complacency after World War II ended. There can be a happy world and there will be once again, when men create a strong bond towards one another, a bond unbreakable by a studied prejudice or a passing circumstance, he recited, quoting the future justice.

Reached by phone on Sunday, the rabbi called her the Hebrew schools most famous alumna and said the congregation was still trying to process the loss. Everyones reeling, he said, apart from the disgusting politics that have been wrapped up in her death. Its a devastating loss.

At a Sunday evening news conference outside James Madison High School, Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Chuck Schumer (valedictorian, class of 1967), both Democrats, briefly lauded Justice Ginsburgs legacy, then quickly pivoted to pressing the Senate to delay confirmation of her replacement on the Supreme Court. We must use every tool at our disposal, said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Schumer said that if Joseph R. Biden Jr. wins the presidency, his party has not ruled out adding more justices to the court.

At the justices old high school, which has a student courtroom named for her, Nanci Richards, a teacher, said students responded most strongly to Justice Ginsburgs perseverance building her career while she had young children, continuing on the Supreme Court even as she fought cancer. It really impressed them that she kept going through all her obstacles, Ms. Richards said. She kept going. And now that shes no longer with us, we keep going.

And the fact that shes one of us, shes a Brooklyn girl, from James Madison, thats even sweeter.

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The Nation Lost a Titan. Brooklyn Lost a Native Daughter. - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

Rosh Hashana, it is written, begins on Friday evening, the first day of the holy month of Tishrei. But at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, like many other congregations, preparations for this years High Holy Days services began far earlier, and were vastly different.

With the coronavirus pushing services online, the synagogue had to hire a video and sound crew, prerecord some parts of the service and arrange for multiple clergy members to lead the worship live, each beaming in from a different location, like news reporters covering a hurricane.

I feel like I have learned how to be a 1950s live television producer, said Serge Lippe, the senior rabbi of the synagogue, a reform congregation. I have been running a show and producing cuts and all kinds of things I have never had to think about.

The first Jewish High Holy Days of the coronavirus era will be celebrated this weekend, and for synagogues across New York the learning curve has been steep.

Many synagogues have livestreamed weekly services during the pandemic, but turning the holidays which include Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year into online celebrations is more complicated than just pointing a camera at the rabbi and logging on to Zoom.

The coronavirus has profoundly disrupted religious life by turning worship services into potentially deadly super-spreader events. And it has deeply affected the Jewish community in New York, arriving on the eve of another holiday, Purim, and exacting a heavy toll among Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and elsewhere.

For many Jewish communities, the threat of the virus has turned Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, which begins on the night of Sept. 27, into online-only events. But that excludes the Orthodox, who are taught to eschew technology on the Sabbath and who plan in-person celebrations of the High Holy Days.

For them, the holidays will be celebrated in synagogues, parking lots and outdoor tents with as many pandemic precautions as possible, said Motti Seligson, a spokesman for the Chabad movement, which is one of the largest Jewish organizations in the world.

Services in the New York area will limit the number of people in attendance, mandate social distancing and face masks and in at least one synagogue on Long Island erect a sheet of plexiglass to separate the rabbi and worshipers, he said.

But not every Orthodox group is being as careful. Last weekend, the Satmar Hasidic movement posted pictures from an official Twitter account that showed thousands of worshipers standing shoulder to shoulder inside a synagogue in Orange County.

The images raised concern about the spread of the virus among Hasidic Jews, whose community was hard hit by the pandemic in the spring amid numerous examples at funerals and schools where social distancing protocols were not observed.

In Brooklyn, Rabbi Lippe said, the synergies of a normal celebration, which might normally draw 1,000 people to his congregation, may be absent this year, but the spiritual heart of the holiday will remain.

We know there will be bloops and blunders along the way, but the High Holy Days are not supposed to be a polished Hollywood production, he said. They are a very human effort that recognizes our imperfections, and many of those imperfections will be on display as we make this effort to worship together remotely.

The Brooklyn Heights Synagogue is far from alone.

Central Synagogue in Manhattan began planning its holiday services in the spring, said its senior rabbi, Angela Buchdahl. Instead of dwelling on all the things they could not do, she said, they decided to focus on the creative opportunities a virtual celebration could provide.

That includes a dance performance planned for Yom Kippur and a High Holy Days box sent to worshipers that was filled with items to help them create a sanctuary at home, including a miniature ark designed by an Israeli artist.

Their online service will also include the prerecorded blowing of a shofar, or rams horn trumpet, that was used in 1944 by Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz to welcome the new year. The horn is currently on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage near Battery Park in Manhattan.

For us to be able to use this symbol of resilience and strength, especially in a year like this, feels particularly powerful, she said.

Romemu, a synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, was one of the first Jewish congregations in New York to shut down when the coronavirus swept through the city in March. It has also livestreamed its Shabbat services for roughly a decade, said Jeff Cahn, its executive director.

But putting together an online-only version of Judaisms most sacred celebrations has still been a challenge, he said. Their holiday goal has been to put everything they have learned from the last six months of online Shabbats to good use, he said.

This has all been an interesting thing for synagogues, which are not used to thinking like digital media companies, said Mr. Cahn. In some ways, we used to be a theater company with live stage performances every week, but now we are a TV company.

In the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana, Romemu also sent congregants a holiday kit they could use to create a sacred space at home. It included a bandanna that can double as an altar cover or a face mask, Mr. Cahn said.

Its service will include a prayer team" that will lead worship while standing at socially distanced intervals on a grassy lawn, he said, as well as musicians and a zoom choir with singers logging on from New York, California and Israel.

In the early days of TV, they just took a stage production and got a wide lens and filmed it and that is kind of how we have been doing live streams, he said. Now we are thinking, OK, this is TV, how do we make this have impact?

But, Mr. Cahn said, he had begun to wonder whether putting on a dazzling online ceremony might create a new set of spiritual problems. After months stuck at home binge watching Netflix, at what point does an online event just become another form of entertainment?

This is not a spectator experience where people come to watch other people pray or to watch the rabbi pray, Mr. Cahn said of his congregations in-person services, which are known for their energy. Now that has been removed and the danger is that it all becomes another TV show you sit on the couch and kick your feet up and just watch the prayers.

But that is not a concern felt by many in the citys Orthodox communities, whose avoidance of technology on the Sabbath and High Holy Days is part of a commitment to more traditional interpretations of religious law.

For those who are unable to attend an in-person service, Rabbi Seligson said, Chabad had also published a downloadable guide in partnership with a publishing company, Kehot Publication Society on how to celebrate Rosh Hashana at home.

Shofars will also be blown in parks and on street corners across the city by volunteers as part of a longstanding drive, which draws people from all denominations of Judaism, to make the tradition accessible outside the walls of a synagogue, he said.

Judaism is not a spectator faith; it is not one that you watch, it is one that you experience, Rabbi Seligson said. People want to be in some kind of sacred environment.

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Rosh Hashana in the Pandemic: Rabbis, Cantors and Video Crews - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

JTA Among the countless traditions upended by the coronavirus pandemic: the annual Rosh Hashanah trek to Brooklyn by the top Satmar rabbi in Kiryas Joel, the upstate New York Orthodox enclave.

Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum will remain in Kiryas Joel for Rosh Hashanah because of new cases of COVID-19 in his town, according to an announcement from a local synagogue shared on social media Wednesday.

He typically travels to Williamsburg, the historic home of Satmar Hasidism in America, for the holiday celebrating the Jewish new year. (Williamsburg is also the base of his brother, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, who leads another group of Satmars.)

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The announcement comes after the Kiryas Joel branch of Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance corps, warned of new cases in the Hasidic enclave. In a notice shared on social media Sunday, Hatzalah advised those who had not previously recovered from the coronavirus in the spring to adhere to social distancing and to wash their hands frequently.

Teitelbaum, 72, contracted the virus in March, when the disease hit Orthodox communities in the New York City area hard.

The announcement also follows exhortations by some Orthodox leaders in Brooklyn not to invite visitors from outside the communities for the upcoming holidays. Those pleas reflect an increasingly desperate effort to stave off the spread of the virus within the areas Orthodox communities, where an uptick in cases recently has followed a long period of few new infections.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi recently warned of increasing COVID test positivity rates in a number of Orthodox neighborhoods in New York City, including Williamsburg, as well as in Borough Park, Midwood, Far Rockaway and Forest Hills. Test positivity rates are a key indicator of disease prevalence.

Large crowds are expected to gather in Hasidic communities on Rosh Hashanah, which begins Friday night, despite the pandemic. In Crown Heights, the base of the Chabad Hasidic movement, large crowds gathered at the main synagogue at Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway Saturday night for Selichot, the special penitential prayers recited before Rosh Hashanah. Similarly large crowds gathered in Hasidic synagogues in other parts of Brooklyn as well as in Kiryas Joel.

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Satmar rabbi to skip traditional Brooklyn holiday visit because of virus spread - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

The legislation of Ukraine should be respected by everyone, regardless of citizenship, religion or belonging to a particular cultural trend, said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba, commenting on the situation with Hasidic pilgrims who are trying to get into the country, despite the closure of borders in connection with the coronavirus pandemic.

"Firstly, there is Ukrainian legislation, which everyone should respect, regardless of citizenship, religion or belonging to a particular cultural trend. Secondly, indeed, a crisis situation was created, but not on the entire Ukrainian-Belarusian border, I want to emphasize, but only at the checkpoint 'Novi Yarylovychi.' When we looked at the entire map of our checkpoints with Belarus, no other checkpoint had such a crisis. Moreover, some foreign citizens arrived at the border, saw that they could not enter Ukraine, turned around and drove back. Everything was calm and civilized," Kuleba said at a joint briefing with the Bulgarian Foreign Minister in Kyiv on Thursday, answering a question from Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that Ukraine keeps in touch on this issue with Belarus and Israel.

"Yesterday we communicated with the Belarusian side on this matter and clearly conveyed to them the position that I have just voiced. We are also in touch with Israel, and I gave instructions to work through all diplomatic channels in order to minimize any misunderstandings on this issue," said the head of the Foreign Ministry.

Kuleba also congratulated all Hasidim on the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

"You know that Rosh Hashanah is recognized in Ukraine as an official holiday, we highly honor it, and I, taking this opportunity, would like to congratulate the Hasidim all over the world that this big bright holiday will come sonn," he said.

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Kuleba on situation with Hasidic pilgrims: Ukrainian legislation should be respected by everyone - Interfax Ukraine

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

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One thing I have learned after cataloging hundreds of thousands of books is that not only cant you judge a book by its cover, you often cant judge it by its title page either. A fascinating and rare Talmud volume I just acquired illustrates why.

This Talmud volume looks fairly standard. But its hardly so. Printed in Vilna in 1855 by the famed Romm Press, this volume of Masechet Kiddushin includes the commentaries of the Maharsha and Maharam on the daf. And then theres this disclaimer that appears in it:

The government, may it be glorified, has justifiably refused the permission to studying this specific tractate and similar tractates with youth in schools as these tractates were founded based on the climate of warmer countries in Asia and following the practices of those ancient times, when the Jews lived among the gentile who worshiped idols and who were attached to all types of evil desires.

It was thus that the rabbis made many regulations and decrees to distance them from these gentiles and their like. What would children and youth need with such things? Why shall we arouse in them such desires which will damage our youth?

We thus thank many times our government, which has enlightened our eyes to prevent teachers from instructing children in this tractate. Only rabbis, lovers of antiquity and those interested in ancient times, are granted permission to study this tractate, as they can differentiate between modern and ancient times and will know to be careful not to be harmed.

We can see that the rabbis in the Talmud themselves understood and found error in the practices of those times. As we find on daf 12, where Rav would instruct to be lashed anyone caught betrothing a woman, or having relations with a woman in public. In addition, it shall be noted, that since the destruction of the Temple, we do not have today the ability to impose penalties or death sentences, and only following the law of the government which protects us we live our lives.

Apparently, the czars censor took offense at the marital issues discussed in this volume, and imposed this text on the reader. Lest the reader find himself forgetting the warning, on all relevant pages in the volume appears a header with a reminder to look at the warning at the beginning of the volume.

Towards the end of the volume, we find a variant warning, stating: From these very pages we can see how our government was correct in preventing students from studying these tractates. Our own sages have taught us (in Avot), that Talmud shall be taught at age 15 why shall we veer from their ways and guidance?

This specific edition does not appear in any of the standard bibliographies, and the only other known copy in the world seems to be in a library in Vilna.

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Masechet Kiddushin With A Government Warning - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

This editorial appears in the Tishrei issue of Lubavitch International, to subscribe for the magazine, click here.

I have stilled and quieted my soul . . . Psalms 131

The mellow days of summer have passed, and autumns arrival has come with a palpable rush of activity. As Rosh Hashanah moves in, the pace quickens. There is so much to do, to say, to share in preparation for the New Year. What will it bring? How will we be judged? A frisson of disquiet marks the hours at the waning of the year.

We may never be ready, but Rosh Hashanah still comes, and a quietness fills the air. For all the prayers we utter on Rosh Hashanah, for all the blessings and greetings we exchange, the central mitzvah of the holiday calls us to listen. We hear the sounds of the shofar. We listen to the gripping words of Untaneh Tokef, we catch the notes of its haunting melody. In the hushed stillness between the prayers and the poemsin the breath between the soulful tuneswe hear. Muted sobs, a whispered plea, the wail of the shofar.

Listening is a key motif within Judaisms history and an important aspect of contemporary practice.

The Five Books of Moses and the rest of Scripture represent the written Torah. Subsequent teachings and interpretations of the written Torah were transmitted orally and required a strong aptitude for attentive listening. Over time, and following the loss of Jewish sovereignty, the rabbis decided to record these oral traditions in a series of transcripts called The Talmud. In the centuries since, the Talmud has formed the basis for Jewish study, law, and practice, as each successive generation keeps on listening, and then transmitting on to the next generation, which then listens in turn.

For a significant segment of the Jewish population, the ability to participate in these discussions has faded over the last two centuries. Yet it is still possible for people in the modern age to listen in, as it were, to the debates held at the ancient rabbinic academies of Babyloniathanks in large part to the monumental efforts of scholars like Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael Steinsaltz, whom we lost this past summer. His work helped to restore this lost ability to perceive the Divine through the Oral Torah (p20). Though more accessible than ever, these texts are still to be approached in awe, with the intent to learn from them, to be inspired by them, and to grow with them. This demands not only a facility with language, but also a capacity to listen in quiet stillness.

We are reminded of this twice a day. Shema Yisrael . . . Listen Israel. This is the first thing that we are asked to recall in the morning, and the last thing that we are asked to recall at night: that to be Jewish is to listen, not only to distant echoes of the past, but to the present moment as well.

The stories that we share in this issue are about the transformative power of quiet listeninglistening to the distress of a homeless street performer (p13), to ones own voice in a quiet moment (p10), to the inaudible cry of a deceased Jew (p32), and to the moments of crisis, revelation, and discovery(p26).

Here too, in such listening, we apprehend the Divine. For G-d is not, He tells Elijah the Prophet, to be found in the roar of wind or firebut, as we say in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom KippurHe is beheld in the kol demama dakkain the sound of a thin silence.Wishing you and all of our readers a Shana Tova Umetukah.

I have stilled and quieted my soul . . . Psalms 131

The mellow days of summer have passed, and autumns arrival has come with a palpable rush of activity. As Rosh Hashanah moves in, the pace quickens. There is so much to do, to say, to share in preparation for the New Year. What will it bring? How will we be judged? A frisson of disquiet marks the hours at the waning of the year.

We may never be ready, but Rosh Hashanah still comes, and a quietness fills the air. For all the prayers we utter on Rosh Hashanah, for all the blessings and greetings we exchange, the central mitzvah of the holiday calls us to listen. We hear the sounds of the shofar. We listen to the gripping words of Untaneh Tokef, we catch the notes of its haunting melody. In the hushed stillness between the prayers and the poemsin the breath between the soulful tuneswe hear. Muted sobs, a whispered plea, the wail of the shofar.

Listening is a key motif within Judaisms history and an important aspect of contemporary practice.

The Five Books of Moses and the rest of Scripture represent the written Torah. Subsequent teachings and interpretations of the written Torah were transmitted orally and required a strong aptitude for attentive listening. Over time, and following the loss of Jewish sovereignty, the rabbis decided to record these oral traditions in a series of transcripts called The Talmud. In the centuries since, the Talmud has formed the basis for Jewish study, law, and practice, as each successive generation keeps on listening, and then transmitting on to the next generation, which then listens in turn.

For a significant segment of the Jewish population, the ability to participate in these discussions has faded over the last two centuries. Yet it is still possible for people in the modern age to listen in, as it were, to the debates held at the ancient rabbinic academies of Babyloniathanks in large part to the monumental efforts of scholars like Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael Steinsaltz, whom we lost this past summer. His work helped to restore this lost ability to perceive the Divine through the Oral Torah (p20). Though more accessible than ever, these texts are still to be approached in awe, with the intent to learn from them, to be inspired by them, and to grow with them. This demands not only a facility with language, but also a capacity to listen in quiet stillness.

We are reminded of this twice a day. Shema Yisrael . . . Listen Israel. This is the first thing that we are asked to recall in the morning, and the last thing that we are asked to recall at night: that to be Jewish is to listen, not only to distant echoes of the past, but to the present moment as well.

The stories that we share in this issue are about the transformative power of quiet listeninglistening to the distress of a homeless street performer (p13), to ones own voice in a quiet moment (p10), to the inaudible cry of a deceased Jew (p32), and to the moments of crisis, revelation, and discovery(p26).

Here too, in such listening, we apprehend the Divine. For G-d is not, He tells Elijah the Prophet, to be found in the roar of wind or firebut, as we say in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom KippurHe is beheld in the kol demama dakkain the sound of a thin silence.

Wishing you and all of our readers a Shana Tova Umetukah.

This editorial appears in the Tishrei issue of Lubavitch International, to subscribe for the magazine, click here.

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The Sound Of A Thin Silence - Lubavitch.com

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Posted By admin on September 19, 2020

How can we utter these words? I believe the pandemic of 2020 contributes a unique backdrop as we struggle with this prayer.

Fires, floods, famines, AND coronavirus are not acts of God. Olam kminhago noheg, the world acts in accordance with its own course. (Talmud) If so, our liturgy is a statement about reality in our world.

People will perish this year by any number of means, including COVID. The presence of God within our world and ourselves urges us to respond to this challenge.

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What will you do?

How will you express Gods presence through your actions? Here is the prayers response:

But repentance, prayer and acts of tzedakah can lessen the severity of the decree

Repentance: Many, if not all, of us have failed people at times in their darkest moments. We didnt know what to say or do. Now is a time for teshuva for change to be the presence of God with those who suffer by listening to them and acknowledging their pain.

Prayer: Let people know that you are praying for them.Pray that they be able to express the divine within themselves, the resilient spirit that will aid their recovery.

And finally, acts of tzedakah: Reach out to support those who have suffered grievous loss. One divinely inspired human being, joining with others to support someone in a time of need, brings profound healing.

In what will likely be a difficult year for many people, let us not speak of a God who harshly punishes, but rather of the ultimate Healer.

Let us, as Gods instruments, seek to bring healing to those in need through our listening ears, the words of our consoling lips and the actions of our sustaining hands.

May the year ahead be a healthy and healing one!

Rabbi Neil Sandler was senior rabbi of Ahavath Achim Synagogue from 2004 to 2019.

See the article here:

On Rosh Hashana it is Written and on Yom Kippur it is Sealed. - Atlanta Jewish Times

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